The Physician: Medical Science and God

In the 11^th century, Christians were not welcome in Persia, so in the film, The Physician (2013), Rob Cole, a Christian, pretends to be Jewish in order to travel from Western Europe to study at the medical school of Ibn Sina, a famous physician in Isfahan. He eventually reveals his religion as that of “the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit” when he is on trial before the local imam. The Jews there doubtlessly feel used and betrayed. As interesting as interreligious controversy can be, I contend that the nature of Cole’s crime is more significant from the standpoint of religion itself. In short, the film illustrates what bad effects are likely to come from committing a category mistake with respect to religion and another domain. Whether conflating distinct domains or erasing the boundary between them, category mistakes had diminished the credibility of religion as being over-reaching by the time that the film was made. As for the matter of interreligious differences, the sheer pettiness by which the three Abrahamic religions that share the same deity have made mole hills into untraversable mountains is hardly worthy of attention, whereas that which makes religion as a domain of phenomena unique and thus distinct from other, even related domains, is in need of further work. The film could have done more in this regard.

The full essay is at "The Physician." 

Interreligious Learning

Jess Navarette, speaking at Harvard’s Bhakti Yoga conference in 2025, defined comparative theology as “the study of religious faith, practice, and experience, especially the study of God and of God’s relation to the world.” Because the capitalized word, “God,” is used and usually identified with the deity of the three Abrahamic religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, Navarette undoubtedly used the term as a general placeholder for divinity, whether in the form of a deity or impersonal, as in brahman in Hinduism. This begs the questions: what is divinity and could a definition apply to every religion? Answers to these questions can be fruitfully informed by what Navarette calls “interreligious learning” in theology, which in turn is not exclusively applicable to Christianity. Rather than presuming that I have answers, I want to explore how such learning can be fruitful in advancing knowledge of religion as an arguably sui generis domain.  

Navarette, like Geertz, advocates “putting (one’s own religion’s) doctrines and belief systems aside” when exploring what we “can learn about God together”. Geertz uses word, epoché, which means “bracketed,” as applying to what a person should do methodologically concerning one’s own religion, while studying what Eliade called “the otherness of the other.” The stance of an Apologetic in supposing that one’s own religion “is better, more complete, or superior to others” is antipodal, and thus not conducive to such a project as involves the study of comparative theology. This is not to deny that religions make such claims of exclusivity or superiority as regards themselves relative to other religions; rather, Navarette’s point is that insisting in the course of study that such claims be recognized as valid upon other religions is not consistent with interreligious study itself.

A “worse-case scenario” would be for a scholar or practitioner of religion to interlard one’s own religious beliefs into the interreligious-learning process in order to stop interreligious learning from occurring at all; worse still, of course, would be such a person castigating or even killing people who are engaged in the project for “insulting the religion” from the outside or “being a heretic” from within.

Just weeks before Navarette spoke at the online conference, I had been accused by an evangelical Christian student at Yale’s divinity school of being a heretic even though we were discussing Christian theology in what I assumed was an academic discussion at lunch. That my interlocutor assumed that the content of my ratiocination (i.e., reasoning) consisted of my personal religious beliefs stunned me. I was citing scholars, after all, whether or not their theories coincided with my own religios beliefs. Following the logic of reasoning is distinct from having one's own religious beliefs as an anchor. That even my academic knowledge was suddenly being questioned and doubted, and even at times dismissed, stunned me, for I had not encountered anything but great respect for my ideas by students of religion at Harvard.

To be sure, “faith seeking understanding” is an intellectually and theologically valid enterprise even at a secular university, but even such an orientation, which, by the way, I had in part when I was a student at Yale because I was considering the ministry, should not be hyperextended to the extent that the boundary between preaching and studying is pierced or even dissolved. Because Harvard’s divinity school is not dominated by the study of a particular religion, that boundary is safe there even as students do not (and should not) always bracket their own religious beliefs and assumptions in studying religion. This is not to say that Princeton Theological Seminary and Yale’s de facto seminary should not focus on Christianity, for there is value in an organization having a distinct niche. Much would be lost were either school to mimic the conduciveness to comparative study that is at both the Chicago and Harvard divinity schools, neither of which is unipolar. My point is merely to point to a risk attendant to studying religion by studying one religion, mostly or exclusively, where many of the students and faculty are apologists, and are thus susceptible to blurring the line.

My own study of religion began with the assumption that I needed to understand more than one religion to grasp the phenomenon of religion, so I began with South Asian religions, after which I studied Christian theology (and philosophy of religion). I must admit that both my studies and my scholarly output in the academic field of religion have been delimited not so much by the judgments of evangelical Christians who do not recognize any boundary between personal belief and academic knowledge, as by something much more troubling. That some practitioners of one religion in particular, who interlope their respective personal religious beliefs onto the academic knowledge of scholars of whatever stripe—not even recognizing the existence of knowledge as anything but personal religious beliefs—would attempt to kill me even for “insulting the religion” has kept me from doing much with that religion academically. Even non-religious ideologies, such as the “woke” ideology in North America, can have a censoring effect on scholars, by means of intentionally using verbal or written hostility as a dogmatic enforcer having the force of law—a law unto themselves.

The value in there being a boundary between personal religiosity and the study of academic knowledge on religion, wherein the latter is protected from encroachments (or being overwhelmed) by the former, applies to scholars themselves in studying religion. The investigator’s attitude while studying is indeed part of the methodology that is fitting to interreligious learning. The methodology in turn should not be conflated with the subject-matter being studied. The output of interreligious dialogue and learning would be incomplete—and with a subtle bias—if the parts of religions that claim superiority over other religions are simply ignored and thus excluded. That a religion’s claims of superiority should not be allowed to get in the way of the dialogue of interreligious dialogue, whether oral or written, is not to say that that those claims should be excluded from being studied.

In other words, toleration is implicit in the project of interreligious learning, but this does not mean that only the tolerant belief-claims of religions can or should be admitted and subject to analysis. A useful example of such analysis is asking whether Jesus’ statement, “No one gets to the Father except through me,” in the New Testament of Christianity is a claim that is limited to that religion, as the claim’s anchor is the Father, or does the claim mean that everyone who does not accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior goes to hell (even though hell is an Abrahamic religious concept and is not in every religion)? Ignoring the passage altogether because it might make some people engaged in interreligious learning uncomfortable conflates methodology and the subject-matter being studied, and renders the results of interreligious study partial (and biased). 

As a scholar of religion, I should not exclude the stances of the evangelical Christian at Yale from the content of Christianity as a religion just because he bothered me, but this does not mean that such an attitude should be allowed to eclipse the process of interreligious knowledge. As for the possibility that a religionist of another religion might kill me were I to include a critique of that religion in my analysis of religion, a scholar should indeed be realistic rather than foolish. Even this text is incomplete as a result of prudence, for I have not even named the religion. Reaching completeness of knowledge is a fool’s goal, as we are human, all too human, but even so, we can and should work to obviate the obstacles as much as we can.

The Hindu Festival of Holi: Polytheism in Practice

On March 14, 2025, “(m)illions of people in South Asia celebrated Holi, the Hindu festival of colors . . . by smearing each other with brightly colored powder, dancing to festive music and feasting on traditional sweets prepared for the occasion.”[1] Lest the various eats and drinks be dismissed for analytical purposes as trivial, a particular kind of drink or food that is traditional can have religious significance by reflecting Hinduism as a polytheistic rather than a monotheist religion. Whereas monotheism allows for only one deity, etymologically mono theos, a polytheist religion has more than one deity, even if one is deemed to be superior over the others.

Holi, a national holiday in India and a two-day holiday in Nepal, where Hinduism is the national religion, celebrates “the end of winter and the triumph of good over evil.”[2] In this regard, Holi shares themes with the Christian festival of Easter, which also occurs during the spring. Yet whereas Easter celebrates the resurrection of Jesus Christ from physical, corporeal death, and used to be associated with an ancient Roman fertility festival—and has retained that theme as the Easter Bunny and Easter egg hunts—“Holi has its origins in Hindu mythology and lore and celebrates the divine love between the Hindu god Krishna and his consort Radha, and signifies a time of rebirth and rejuvenation.”[3] The association with the end of winter and “rebirth and rejuvenation” applies to both Easter and Holi, as well as the pagan festival of the Spring Equinox, which also takes place in the spring (i.e., it is not the beginning of meteorological spring).

In Hindu theology, Krishna is an embodied avatar (i.e., incarnation) of Vishnu, who with Brahma and Shiva are the three main gods in Hinduism. This does not mean that Krishna is less significant, however, as that deity has a prominent place in the Hindu scriptural text, the Bhagavad-Gita. In that text, Krishna claim to be superior to all of the other Hindu deities. This does not mean that Hinduism is monotheist. This point is reflected by the fact that bhang, a drink prepared with cannabis and consumed with milk or water, is a “tradition that marks Holi.”[4] Even though Krishna and his consort figure prominently in the festival, the “drink is connected to Hinduism, particularly to Lord Shiva”.[5] That the association with that deity, which is commensurate with Vishnu, of which Krishna is but the tenth incarnation, is tolerated (the cannabis likely being helpful in this regard) in a festival based on Krishna signifies that Hindus are just fine with their religion being polytheist. Even though the attitude evinced by statements like, You shouldn’t have a drink that is associated with another god during a festival of Krishna!, is consistent with polytheism because the existence of another god is implicitly affirmed, toleration is a much healthier attitude in a polytheist religion such as Hinduism. Worse than either attitude is making a category mistake in claiming that Hinduism is monotheist.

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1. “Millions of  People Celebrate Holi, the Hindu Festival of Colors,” The Associated Press, March 14, 2025.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.

[5] Ibid.

Witchcraft as a Religion

If ever there were a mistaken title for a movie, Bell, Book and Candle must rank in the upper tier, for the spells in the bewitching comedy hinge on a cat and a bowl rather than bell, book, and candle. Magic can be thought of as the making use of concrete objects, combined with words, to engage a supernatural sort of causation meant to manipulate sentient or insentient beings/objects for one’s own purposes.  The film, Bell, Book and Candle (1958), is not only a love story and a comedy, but also the presentation of a story-world in which witches and warlocks engage in contending spells for selfish reasons. That story-world in turn can be viewed as presenting a religion, which can be compared and contrasted with others. Most crucially as far as religion is concerned, the supernatural element that is observable in the story-world points to the existence of a realm that lies beyond the world of our daily lives and thus renders the film’s story-world different. Put another way, the unique type of causation, which appears only as coincidence to the characters who are not in on the existences of witches and warlocks in the story-world, transcends appearance because the “laws” of the causation operate hidden from view, as if in another realm. I contend that it is precisely such transcendence not only in terms of belief, but also praxis, that distinguishes the domain of religion as unique and thus distinct from other domains, including those of science (e.g., biology, astronomy), history, and even ethics.

The full essay is at "Bell, Book, and Candle." 

Is the Hindu Bhagavadgita Monotheist?

Even though the Bhagavadgita is just a small part of the Mahabharata Hindu epic, the popularity of the former book in Hindu households has led to it being referred to as the Hindu Bible. This likeness should be taken at face value, for the contents in the Gita are very different than the theological context of the Bible, whether just the Torah, the Talmud, or the New Testament. Even though the virtue of kindness or love issuing out in compassion to other people is a shared descriptor of the Hindu Lord Krishna, which is the highest god in the Gita, and the Christian Lord Jesus, the ideational dissimilarities between the Gita and the Bible should not be glossed over. Put another way, not even the symbol of the mandala, which Joseph Campbell includes as the religious archetype of wholeness in The Power of Myth, should dispel the notion that religions contain unique and thus different philosophical and theological ideas and even just stances.

In the Bhagavadgita, for example, “(y)oga practices and knowledge of salvation are equated with ritual performances in which all defilements and desires are offered up in the ‘sacrificial fire’ (agni) of knowledge.”[1] In ritual, basic elements on Earth, such as fire, water, and food, which, astonishingly, are labeled as deities in the Chandogya Upanishad, are related to, and perhaps even vicariously connect, the cosmos and the human person. Knowledge of liberation from rebirths (samsara) involves or even necessitates the sacrifice of desires. The word salvation is extremely salient in Christianity, and yet is hardly innate to Hinduism; the connotation that being saved by the vicarious sacrifice (as per Anselm’s theology) of a god-man once and for all so that any believer is made right thereby with God (i.e., justified by faith, as per Luther’s theology) is foreign to Hinduism. To be sure, the inclusion the element of food in both the Hindu sacrificial ritual and in the Christian Eucharistic ritual (i.e., Communion) and even that the food is consecrated in the latter with the real presence of the divine (agape) and food is labeled at a deity in a Upanishad should not blind a non-Hindu reader of the Gita into supposing that the book’s paradigm like the one upon which the Judeo-Christian Bible rests.

Even taking into account Gnostic Christianity, the emphasis which the Gita places on knowledge, especially that which Krishna imparts to Arjuna, distinguishes Hinduism from Christianity, where at least Paul distinguishes theology from philosophy—only the knowledge of the wise being vain.[2] This demarcation, and prejudice against philosophy, does not exist in Hinduism. Malinar, for instance, refers explicitly to “the various religious and philosophical doctrines presented in the [Gita]” without driving an artificial wedge between them.[3]

Furthermore, even though Krishna is portrayed as the high deity and even the portal through which Brahman itself can be glimpsed in full—as if that were possible for a human being—it is a mistake to label the Gita as monotheist. Even though Krishna is portrayed in the Gita as “the mighty ruler and creator of the world and its dharmic order, as well as the ever-liberated and transcendent ‘highest self’” and thus as “the most powerful Lord and yogin,” with “power over nature (prakrti)” and being “the cosmic cause of activity” yet “detached from the created world, being forever ‘unborn’ and transcendent,”[4] it is a mistake to conclude that Krishna’s supreme qualities renders the Gita as monotheist.

As if the Gita were akin to Hobbes’ Leviathan, Malinar states that the “monotheistic theology in [the Gita] also offers an interpretation of kingship and royal power” simply because Krishna is revealed “as the highest god.”[5] Even in the Hebrew Bible where other gods are referred to, they are not credited with being real gods, so it is not as though Yahweh is the highest god; rather, Yahweh is the only god, and thus God.[6] Also, the accolades that Malinar attributes to Krishna do not make Krishna merely a manifestation of Yahweh, for the latter did not create a dharmic order and is not liberated as the highest-self. Although “detached from the created world, being forever ‘unborn’ and transcendent” also characterizes Yahweh, or God, I wonder whether Malinar was knowingly or unknowingly drawing on Christian theology in describing Krishna in such “Western” terms.

Furthermore, I submit that not even Brahman considered as the highest or supreme god in Hinduism renders the religion monotheist. One twentieth-century American philosopher, Keith Yandel, erroneously interpreted the Hindu philosopher and theologian, Shankara (8^th century, CE), as characterizing Hinduism as monotheist simply because, according to non-dualism, the Hindu deities are merely appearances, or manifestations, of Brahman. As the ground-being of the world’s multiplicity, Brahman cannot be said have what we think of as intelligence as it differs from the awareness or consciousness of being itself qua being.  Neither can Brahman be thought of as a discrete entity, for Brahman is the being of everything—of all existence, or, perhaps more accurately, of existence itself. It is surely difficult, if not impossible, to view raw being as an entity; rather, being is the existential basis (rather than an attribute) of entities. So, I’m not convinced that Brahman can even be said to be a deity. It is possible that English translators of the Gita (and the Upanishads) have used a familiar word whose meaning differs from what the writers of the text(s) had in mind. In any case, when the warrior Arjuna gets a glimpse of Brahman itself by Krishna revealing himself as he really is, it is not the Abrahamic deity, or God, that Arjuna sees in his epiphany.

As yet another example of a leitmotif of the Gita that is not easily convertible into any of the Abrahamic faiths, Krishna urges Arjuna to engage on the external battlefield with “detached action” as a way to avoid “karmic bondage” even as Arjuna is active and performs his social duties.[7] To be sure, to be detached from sinful desires in Christianity bears a rough similarity to the “detached action,” but here even the desire not to harm relatives is a problem. Also, the very notion of “karmic bondage” is utterly foreign to the Abrahamic religions. In Christianity, for example, the bondage is to sin, whose basis lies within rather than as actions (even less in the residue of past actions).

Although religions can be said to bear Wittgenstein’s “family resemblances” to each other, the urge to minimize or overlook the differences between religions, as in depicting one in terms of another (or that another uses), should be checked and corrected for, lest scholars of religion unintentionally remake particular religions into more familiar terms. One of the main benefits of studying more than one religion, especially religions other than one’s own, is the access to different ideas and theologies/philosophies. A person’s own religious/philosophical paradigm can be made transparent to oneself even to be seen as an alternative rather than as the unquestioned and unrecognized default. Unconsciously distorting other religions into more familiar terms diminishes this realization.

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1. Angelika Malinar, The Bhagavadgita: Doctrines and Contexts (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), p. 4.
2. 1. Cor. In contrast, the Hebrew Bible contains the verse, “God knows the thoughts of men.” Paul adapts this to: “God knows the thoughts of the wise; they are vain.” Jerusalem is fine; Athens is not. Such a dichotomy does not exist in Hinduism.  
3. Malinar, The Bhagavadgita, p. 5.
4. Ibid., p. 6.
5. Ibid., p. 4.
6. Also, whereas Hobbes’ notion of a sovereign power, whether a king or an assembly, has absolute political and religious (i.e., interpreting divine law) power within a territory, Hindu kings have traditionally been at least ritually dependent on the Brahmin priests in the main temple not only for another year of legitimacy, but also as a means of gaining power by giving land away through the auspices of the temple.
7. Malinar, The Bhagavadgita, p. 4.

A Hindu Goddess Destroying and Recreating Other Hindu Deities: Contrasting the Christian Trinity

The Saundarya Lahari characterizes the Hindu goddess, Devi, as being the power behind the proverbial throne—meaning the thrones of the three main deities, Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva. Without Devi bestowing her power on those (and all other) gods, they would “return to their primal, dormant state” until revived by the power that Devi wields as signified visually by the weapons that she holds.[1] Are those deities merely dormant, however, or are they destroyed when Devi withholds her power? For there is an appreciable difference between being rendered impotent or inactive, and being zerstört (i.e., destroyed). In Greek mythology, one thing that distinguishes the gods from morals is that of the two, only the gods cannot die. In Christianity, Jesus Christ survives the death of his corporeal body, which is transformed in the bodily resurrection on Easter in a way that would have perplexed Plato. Indeed, it is interesting to compare the Trinity with the relation of the foundational goddess Devi to the three main gods in the Saundarya Lahari, a poem doubtlessly written by a devotee of the goddess.

Verse 25 of the Hindu poem highlights the points that “Devi is supreme” and the other “divine beings . . . serve and praise Her. Devi provides the foundation for the gods and their worship.”[2] Francis Clooney’s translation goes as follows:

“Benevolent one, may the worship rendered to the three gods born of Your three qualities be as worship rendered to Your feet, for near the jeweled seat on which Your feet rest, they ever stand, folded hands adorning their crowns.”[3] 

Worshipping Brahma, who is the creator deity, Vishnu, who sustains the world by inhaling its pollution, and Shiva, the destroyer, is tantamount to worshipping the goddess, Devi, as the three gods stand at her feet, which in turn are associated with her power and thus protection. It is as if Devi is sitting on a throne, at the bottom of which the three main Hindu gods are standing. The image in Christianity of Jesus sitting on the right side of the Father may come to mind, though in that case, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are not separate deities, but, rather, are three manifestations of one God. To be sure, in Hinduism, the deities are considered to be manifestations of Brahman, which is consciousness/awareness beyond that of sentient beings, existence/reality, and bliss, and is not thought of as a supreme personal deity as is the Abrahamic deity. The supremacy of Devi is that of one deity over others (in terms of power), and in Christianity the Father and Son are of one substance rather than one manifestation of the God being superior to the other. Even so, the Christian image is hardly disparate here in imagining the special relationships in verse 25 of the Saundarya Lahari.

Swami Tapasyananda’s translation of verse 25 can be approached as providing additional details, albeit at the expense of the poetic and linguistically literal qualities of Clooney’s more concise version:

“The worship done at Thy feet, O Consort of Siva, is also the worship of all the three Deities Brahma, Visnu and Siva, who have their origin in Thy three Gunas (Rajas, Sattva and Tamas). They require no special worship, because they are ever waiting with their joined palms held above their diademed heads in salutation to Thee by the side of the foot-stool of diamonds that bear Thy feet.”[4]

Tapasyananda does not provide a commentary on this verse; even so, we can visualize the three main Hindu gods standing next to the foot-stool that Devi, who is presumably sitting (on a throne), is using to rest her feet. Again, Jesus sitting at the right side of the Father may come to mind. But the three main Hindu gods—those of creation, sustaining the world, and destroying the world, respectively, don’t all align with the three Persons of the Christian Trinity.

God as creator or Jesus Christ as manifesting the Logos may be thought prime facie to resonate with Brahma as the creator deity in Hinduism, but the fact that Brahma draws on Devi’s rajas guna dispels any such likeness under the rubric of creating. In his commentary on verse 53, which I will draw on below to make another point, Tapasyananda claims that the rajas, sattva, and tamas are not only qualities found in nature, but are also Devi’s creative power and are thus the respective origins of the three main gods.[5] If the parallelism between listing the three gods and the three gunas means that the latter are respective to the order of the deities, then Brahma, the god who creates the world is characterized by Rajas: “activity, passion, desire, attachment, and energy.”[6] Rajas “embodies movement, expansion and upward flow.”[7] In Christian theology, the creative agent in God is the Logos, or “word” or “reason,” which is that which later incarnates as Jesus Christ. The nature of God as an intelligent being is highlighted in the Logos, whereas passion and desire are among the qualities in which the Hindu god Brahma has its origin, which, by the way, means that Brahma has his origin in Devi’s creative power. Also, whereas the Christian God can be reckoned as being the source of the energy that is in Creation, Brahma can be characterized in terms of the creative energy itself, which comes from Devi. In this sense, the transcendent Christian God is more like Brahman than the Hindu deities. All except for Devi, however, as the devotee writes of that goddess,

“You are mind, You are air, You are wind and the rider of wind, You are water, You are earth, beyond You as You evolve there is nothing higher, there is only You, and when You transform Yourself by every form, then You take the form of consciousness and bliss as a way of being, O Shiva’s youthful one!”[8]

Besides being the basic elements that make up creation (though the ancient Greek philosopher Empedocles included fire along with earth, air, and water), Devi is mind, and thus awareness/consciousness. In verse 30 the poet writes to Devi, “You are eternal” and “I am You.” Both verses describe Devi close to how Brahman is described elsewhere (awareness, existence itself, and bliss). Devi pervades creation and even beyond, as there is nothing higher; “there is only You.” Perhaps it could be said that Devi is beyond functionality—having also an ontological existence that renders the goddess qualitatively different than the other gods and goddesses because only Devi can be understood in terms that apply to Brahman. In this sense, Devi is more like the Christian deity than are the other Hindu gods and goddesses, for which particular functions are emphasized (e.g., Shiva is the destroyer). In other word, Devi (in assuming Brahman qualities) can be thought of as the awareness and reality within which the big deities exist and perform their functions. It follows that in destroying the world, Shiva cannot destroy Devi.

Whereas both Brahma and the Christian God are associated with creating the universe, the god Shiva bears little resemblance to the Christian God, which as Paul and Augustine wrote, is essentially love. Compassion and mercy outweigh the destructiveness of God’s wrath. Shiva having its origin in the tamas guna, which is associated with “inertia, ignorance, delusion, darkness, and heaviness,” and represents “sloth, dullness, and downward flow.”[9] None of these qualities pertains to the Christian God, even in its wrath.

As for Vishnu, in that his origin is in the qualities of sattva, this god can be characterized by “truth, goodness, harmony, balance, and spiritual essence,” as representing “light, intelligence, and consciousness.”[10] Whereas Shiva destroys, Vishnu sustains, or saves the world at least in the meantime, and, furthermore, as having the qualities of goodness, harmony (peace), a spiritual sense, light, intelligence, and consciousness, Vishnu can be viewed in terms similar to Jesus. The second “person” of the Trinity (i.e., Jesus) is the Logos, which in turn, as reason, can be associated with intelligence. Indeed, Vishnu’s incarnation or avatar as the god Krishna has been likened to Jesus Christ, as compassion is salient to both the Hindu god and the incarnated manifestation of the Christian God (i.e., Jesus Christ). Indeed, the Christian Incarnation can be thought of as the consciousness of God winnowed through a (finite) human body.

Even given these likenesses between Vishnu and Jesus, the latter is a manifestation or “Person” of a deity, whereas Vishnu is a deity (among others). Also, the relationship between Vishnu and Devi is not between two manifestations (or “Persons”) of one God (though admittedly of Brahman, though that is not a deity). Devi is a goddess and Vishnu is a god; both are Hindu deities to be worshipped even though worshipping Devi is sufficient because Vishnu has his origin in Devi’s creative power (sattva). To be sure, it could be said that Jesus gets his power from the Father, as for instance when Jesus calls on God the Father in bringing Lazarus back to life. “Jesus looked up and said, ‘Father, I thank you that you have heard me.’”[11] Whether Jesus’ Father could cut off Jesus’ power such that Jesus would be rendered inactive or even destroyed (beyond just the death of his body) may be similar to asking whether Devi could render the other Hindu deities merely dormant or actually destroy them by taking away their power.

Francis Clooney’s translation of verse 26 of the Saundarya Lahari is relevant:

“Virinci [Brahma] returns to the five elements, Hari [Vishnu] ceases His delight, the destroyer [Kinasa (Yama, the god of death)] meets destruction, the lord of wealth loses wealth, the untiring array of great Indras also close their eyes, and in that great dissolution, O good woman, Your Lord plays.”[12]

On the one hand, Brahma seems to be destroyed by Devi, who returns that god to the five basic elements in the world; Kinasa is destroyed because he himself meets destruction; and, moreover, the word “dissolution” implies more than the gods merely going inactive. On the other hand, Vishnu no longer being delighted, the lord of wealth losing wealth, and the Indra closing his eyes may be interpreted as Devi merely rendering those deities passive by taking away their respective powers. Yet in describing the whole verse in terms of “dissolution,” the poet may have meant destruction rather than inactivity, given that the word “dissolution” has been defined as the “dissolving” or “separation” of something “into component parts”, as in “disintegration” or “death,” or the “termination or destruction by breaking down, disrupting, or dispersing.”[13]

Tapasyananda’s translation of the verse might be helpful too:

“Virincill (Brahma) is reduced into elements: Hari (Visnu) retires into passivity; Kinasa (Yama the god of death) himself dies; Kubera the god of wealth meets with his end; and Indra with all his followers closes his eyes in destruction. When such, O Sati (chaste Consort of Siva), is the state of all beings at the time of the total dissolution (mahasamhara) of the universe, Thy husband Sadasiva [Shiva] alone is sporting.”[14] 

Even though Vishnu being passive resonates with that god no longer having delights rather than necessarily being destroyed, Kinasa, Kubera, and Indra are clearly destroyed, given the respective words, “dies,” “meets with his end,” and “destruction,” respectively. Vishnu too seems to be destroyed rather than merely rendered inoperative because Devi leaves only Shiva, her husband, around “at the time of the total dissolution (mahasamhara) of the universe.” Maha Samhara can in general mean “destruction, annihilation, or dissolution.”[15] None of these words are consistent with, or imply someone merely being rendered impassive. The destruction presumably includes the gods, as, according to the Rig Veda, they came out of purusa’s head rather than having existed prior to the primordial human body out of which the heavens and the earth were carved.

Devi only excepts Shiva because out of the loyalty or faithfulness that a consort has to her husband, the wife gains power, and Devi is all about power. In his commentary on the verse, Tapasyananda explains that the indestructability of the couple, Siva-Sakti (i.e., Shiva and Devi), is due to Devi’s “whole-hearted faithfulness” (pativratya) to her husband, “which according to Hindu belief, is supposed to generate great power in a woman.”[16] Perhaps as a result of if such an augmentation to her power, it is so great that she can bring the other deities back into existence, rather than merely allow them to be active again. This would indeed justify her claim that devotees need only worship her to worship the three main gods.

For we find later in the Saundarya Lahari, in the Flood of Beauty (verses 42-91), in verse 53 specifically, that the three main gods, Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva, “still play a part in the drama of beauty and pleasure surrounding Devi. To do so, they must exist after having been destroyed by Devi. They exist due to Her glance: “O beloved of the Lord, when Your eye shadow smears in play[,] Your triad of eyes displays three colors distinctly, and so recreates the three gods—Druhina, Hari, Rudra—after they’d ceased; Your eyes shine like the triad of qualities, sattva, rajas, and tamas.’”[17] In being recreated after they had ceased—being recreated means that ceased to exist rather than merely ceased to be active is the correct implication—the gods Druhina (i.e., Brahma), Hari (Vishnu) and seemingly inconsistently because Devi had not destroyed her husband, even Rudra (Shiva) are again existing. Tapasyananda’s translation of verse 53 fills in some of the details of Devi’s glance, which is enough to bring the main gods back into existence:

“O Consort of Isvara [Shiva]! Thy three eyes look tri-coloured when the black of the beautifying collyrium shines by the side of their natural white and reddish tinges, each keeping its distinctiveness. It looks as if these three colours represent the three Gunas of Rajas, Sattva, and Tamas, which Thou assumes with a view to revive Brahma, Visnu, and Rudra [Shiva] after their dissolution in the Pralaya, and start them once again on the creative activity.”[18]

In his commentary, Tapasyananda notes that the three colors represent the three gunas respectively, which Devi uses as the “creative power” with which to revive the three gods and enable them to be active.[19] By implication destroying them and rendering them inactive are distinct. Devi does both in destroying Brahma and Vishnu, as reviving rather than merely enabling activity are both done in verse 53.

Tapasyananda’s choice of the word, revive, is particularly interesting, as it may imply bringing back to life rather than merely existence. In Clooney’s translation of the verse, he uses “recreate” rather than “revive”:

“O beloved of the Lord, when Your eye shadow smears in play[,] Your triad of eyes displays three colors distinctly, and so recreates the three gods—Druhina, Hari, Rudra—after they’d ceased; Your eyes shine like the triad of qualities, sattva, rajas, and tamas.[20]

Clooney “opted for the more literal translation of punah srastum—the verb srj usually means ‘to create,’ whereas ‘revive’ is a weaker translation; it may be that [Tapasyananda] wanted to show that the deities were not dead, but only in a swoon.”[21] If so, then Clooney’s interpretation leaves Devi with more power, as more is needed to destroy and recreate than merely to render something (or someone) powerless. The poet’s point that a devotee of Vishnu or Shiva, for example, need only worship Devi, as the power behind those gods, rather than also worship them too, is stronger. In my own search, I found that punah srastum can also mean “to originate,” which bolster’s Clooney’s interpretation, which, by the way, is consistent with the inclusion in the verse of the word “cease.”

In short, Devi destroys gods rather than merely renders them impotent (non potentia). In viewing the big gods as destroyed and then recreated along in the cyclical paradigm of the religion, Hinduism differs fundamentally from the Abrahamic religions, wherein Yahweh/God/Allah is not created or subject to creation, but, rather, like Brahma, creates the universe. Neither is the Abrahamic God subject to being destroyed, given the divine attribute of omnipotence; nothing has power over God.

Furthermore, interpreting Devi as reviving the big gods may imply that the gods are alive. In the Christian New Testament, Jesus revives Lazarus, who is not a god. Reviving a person is distinct from when God the Father resurrects Jesus. Devi does not resurrect, or much less bodily resurrect, Brahma and Vishnu (and perhaps Shiva).[22] So from a Christian standpoint, Devi reviving gods and goddesses simply does not make sense. This is yet another reason for going with Clooney’s translation. Also, the ancient Greeks would not have understood how a deity can be destroyed and then recreated later, because immortality is a major attribute of a Greek god or goddess (being a giant is the other main requirement).

To be sure, in a general sense, God manifesting as the Father brings the divine manifestation that is Jesus back from having been killed. This is vaguely akin to Devi bringing at least two major gods back to existence after having destroyed them because the leitmotif is that of something divine ending and being brought back by something else that is divine. In Christianity, this has been referred to as God “self-emptying” of itself first in allowing itself to be incarnated alongside a human nature (albeit still fully divine and fully human: comprising one essence and two distinct rather than blending natures) and then to allow the Christ to die, which is more than merely being made inactive. In Hinduism, the main gods are destroyed then revived by the creative powers of a goddess, Devi. Devi herself does not suffer any self-emptying; in fact, being able to destroy and revive even gods means that her power is so great that only she is truly worthy of being worshipped, whereas in Christianity, all three Trinitarian manifestations, or “Persons,” of God are worthy of being worshipped in their own terms; worship of God the Father does not mean that neither the Son or the Holy Spirit need be worshipped. In contrast, the Saundarya Lahari, a poem of devotion to the Hindu goddess that empowers, destroys, and recreates all of the other gods and goddesses, asserts that given those powers, worship directed solely to Devi is sufficient; other divine manifestations of Brahman stand below Devi’s throne. Omnipotentia is, in other words, a very important divine attribute.

Yet another implication for Christianity is whether the Father’s power is great than that of Jesus, as the latter calls on the Father to revive Lazarus. If so, then being consubstantial (i.e., being of the same substance) does not necessary mean having the same amount of power. As manifestations of Brahman, according to Shankara, who was a Hindu theologian, Hindu deities are consubstantial, yet as the Saundarya Lahari insists, they differ greatly in power—Devi’s being so much more that she can destroy and recreate the other gods and goddesses. God manifesting as the Father in the Trinity, whose three manifestations are eternal and thus the two others cannot be destroyed and recreated by the Father, does not have that much power over the Son and Holy Spirit. In fact, it is the Son as the eternal Logos that is the Christian God’s Word that is that God’s creative power.

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1. The quoted text is from Francis X. Clooney, Divine Mother, Blessed Mother: Hindu Goddesses and the Virgin Mary (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), p. 160.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Saundarya-Lahari of Sri Sankaracarya, trans. Swami Tapasyananda (Mylapore, Chennai: Sri Ramakrishna Math Printing Press, 1987), p. 72.
5. Ibid., p. 118.
6. Quoted text is from a search of the three names of the gunas at Brave.com (accessed October 14, 2024).
7. Ibid.
8. Verse 35 of the Saundarya Lahari. Francis X. Clooney, Divine Mother, Blessed Mother: Hindu Goddesses and the Virgin Mary (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005).
9. Quoted text is from a search of the three names of the gunas at Brave.com (accessed October 14, 2024).
10. Ibid.
11. The Gospel of John 11:41 (NIV).
12. Francis X. Clooney, Divine Mother, Blessed Mother: Hindu Goddesses and the Virgin Mary (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), p. 160.
13. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary entry for “dissolution.” (Merriam-webster.com accessed on October 14, 2024).
14. Saundarya-Lahari of Sri Sankaracarya, trans. Swami Tapasyananda (Mylapore, Chennai: Sri Ramakrishna Math Printing Press, 1987),  p. 72.
15. Quoted words are from a search of the definition of Maha Samhara at Brave.com (accessed October 14, 2024).
16. Ramakrishna Math Printing Press, 1987), p. 73.
17. Francis X. Clooney, Divine Mother, Blessed Mother: Hindu Goddesses and the Virgin Mary (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), p. 160.
18. Saundarya-Lahari of Sri Sankaracarya, trans. Swami Tapasyananda (Mylapore, Chennai: Sri Ramakrishna Math Printing Press, 1987), p. 117.
19. Ibid., p. 118.
20. Francis X. Clooney, Divine Mother, Blessed Mother: Hindu Goddesses and the Virgin Mary (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), p. 160.
21. Francis X. Clooney, Personal correspondence, October 16, 2024.
22. I enclose “Shiva” in parentheses because of the contradiction in Devi having not destroyed Shiva and yet in verse 53, that god is included with the other two main Hindu gods as being revived by Devi. Although it is possible that another, prior verse has Devi destroy Shiva, which is unlikely because of the power that Devi (and the couple) gets for loyalty to her husband, I think it more likely that there is a contradiction in the text, which could indicate that it evolved over time, even after having been written, and perhaps more than one writer contributed to the poem. So it could be that in imposing unity on the poem, the error lies with the reader rather than the writer(s).

Religious Transcendence

I contend that the core of religion is its quality of transcendence beyond the limits of human thought, perception, and emotion. This is not to say that nothing may be said of the divine, but that the stuff of our realm does not exhaust the mystery. We can’t have God utterly figured out, for it would be impious of creatures of finite knowledge to presume such knowledge that would fill up the dark hole of absolute mystery. I turn to the Christian theologian, Karl Rahner, and to the Hindu Rigveda to support this point, which is valid, I submit, for anything that is (or can be counted as) a religion.

In chapter two of Foundations of Christian Faith, Karl Rahner reflects on “that transcendental experience in which a person comes into the presence of the absolute mystery which we call ‘God,’ an experience which is more primary than reflection and cannot be recaptured completely by reflection.”[1] In other words, the theologian reflects on a human experience that is more primary than reflection. Similarly, he claims that the word, God, “is itself a reality,” which, unlike the word itself, is presumably beyond reflection.[2] Borrowing from Pseudo-Dionysius, we could say that both the transcendental experience and the metaphysically real referent of the word God go beyond the limits of human conception, perception, and sensibility (i.e., emotion). The key here is go beyond, which is different than “is entirely beyond.” So we can hang what Hume refers to as anthropomorphic ornaments on the experience and reality, which thus need not be utterly ineffable. Both the experience and the reality go beyond our reflections, and thus our words, and this should situate our attempts to provide descriptors such that we do not take them as absolute and exhaustive. Even divine revelation, Augustine writes, arrives in our realm as through a darkened window. Hence, a person having a transcendental experience comes into the presence of absolute mystery—a point that Hegel seems to relegate under the presumed clarity of revelation. To the Christian, according to Hegel, the proclamation “God is dead” means that “the truths of faith are not in heaven but fully revealed in and for the finite world.”[3]  That is, the content of Christianity “is that God is revealed to human beings, that they know what God is.”[4] Augustine’s darkened window is assumed to be transparent, as if the taint of the fall had no impact on our reception of revelation. Dionysius’ “goes beyond” is utterly ignored. In short, Hegel risks idealizing our realm and extirpating the continuance of absolute mystery.

I submit that the inclusion of a transcendent referent even though it inherently goes beyond the limits of our cognitions, perceptions, and sensibilities is essential to the domain of religion and renders it sui generis, and thus properly subject to its own criteria, rather than those of history, ethics, or science. This is the thesis of one of my research projects. I submit that transcendence as “going beyond” is present not just in Christianity, but in Hinduism as well. For instance, “going beyond” is depicted in X.90 of the Rigveda in the person of Purusa in the following verses:[5]

“Having covered the earth on all sides, he extended ten fingers’ breadth beyond.” (v. 1)

“he is master of immortality when he climbs beyond (this world) through food.” (v. 2)

“So much is his greatness, but the Man is more than this: a quarter of him is all living beings; three quarters are the immortal in heaven.” (v. 3)

“Upon his birth, he reached beyond the earth from behind and also from in front.” (v. 5)

“From his head the heaven developed.” (v. 14)

According to Jamison and Brereton, the “ten fingers’ breadth” by which Purusa “exceeds the world measures from the Man’s hairline to his mouth” and is thus of “the imperceptible world of thought.”[6] Also beyond the world lie immortality (v. 2) and heaven (v. 3). Indeed, heaven developed from his head (v. 14). This ethereal beyondness lies beyond our realm, or world, and thus beyond the limits of human cognition, perception, and sensibility. In the cosmological myth of the primordial Purusa, a transcendental experience can thus be associated with the nature of Man—in particular, with our mind—what Feuerbach would say is simply human nature. But as coming from the mind, the experience may be construed as being of thought, rather than going beyond the limits of cognition as Dionysius claims. If so, going beyond the world in the Rigveda (X.90) is not as transcendent. Thus it may be asked whether the absoluteness of mystery is eclipsed. If so, it would not necessarily be as compromised as in the case of Hegel’s view the human capacity for knowledge of God, for beyondness itself is salient in Rigveda X.90. That is to say, what is beyond the world is specified only to a limited extent (e.g., heaven, immortality). Yet it is presumably from thought—the area between the hairline and the mouth. Thought may begin us on the road to a transcendental experience (and notion of the divine), but the key lies in being willing to go beyond thought into the presence of absolute mystery. 

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1. Karl Rahner, Foundations of Christian Faith: An Introduction to the Idea of Christianity, William V. Dych, trans. (New York: The Seabury Press, 1978), p. 44.
2. Ibid., p. 50.
3. Jeffrey Kosky, “The Birth of the Modern Philosophy of Religion and the Death of Transcendence.” Pp. 13-29 in Transcendence: Philosophy, Literature, and Theology Approach the Beyond. Regina Schwartz, ed. (New York: Routledge, 2004): 22.
4. Hegel, Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion, p. 130.
5. The Rigveda: The Earliest Religious Poetry of India, Vol. 3, Stephanie W. Jamison and Joel P Brereton, trans. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014): 1549-550.  Bold added.

[6] Ibid., p. 1538.

Comparing Religions

The subfield of comparative religions can be exciting because the beliefs, values, symbols, myths, and rituals can introduce a person to such different ideas that the rush of making a discovery can even be felt. Jaroslav Pelikan, a twentieth-century historian of Christianity, once said that he had learned so many languages just so he could have access to ideas that were not as of yet available in English. Such ideas could be very different than the historian’s extant knowledge. It is perhaps like the early European explorers in America finding plants and cultures that were so unlike those of Europe because the distance had not allowed for cross-pollination and the influence of cultural exchanges. I contend that one reason why religions can be very difficult to compare is that elements of them in a given topic can be so different in kind as to not be comparable. Religions may even be based on variables that cannot be directly compared because they are so different in kind. The related paradigms also may not be comparable. Therefore, it may be that religious comparison is more fitting to comparing sects (e.g., denominations) within a given religion. Even when continuity exists between an established religion and a new one in the same context, the foundational variables may be so different in kind that they are not comparable. I will look at cosmology (e.g., Creation), ritual (e.g., sacrifices) and divine attributes (e.g., truth and love) below to support my claim.

The paradigm of a creator and creation must seem very foreign to a Buddhist who has been brought up without the notion of a beginning point. Indeed, the Big Bang could be reckoned as one explosion in a series. The underlying cyclical idea differs appreciably from that of linearity. That Creation occurred only once at the beginning and salvation history does not repeat itself assumes that time is linear—a straight line that keeps on going without doubling back. I contend that religions are so difficult to compare because they rest on qualitatively different variables and even paradigms (i.e., basic frameworks).

Shankara’s Hindu metaphysic of truth surrounded by illusion surrounded by ignorance (maya) is so different from the Abrahamic religious notion of a creator and creation that the two paradigms can hardly be compared in that finding a common denominator is necessary. That the Abrahamic deity created all that is may be true, but truth itself is not the same as creation ex nihilo. Truth cannot depend even on the created existence if the Abrahamic deity is the first cause and stands outside of creation as well as being omnipresent within it. Furthermore, truth can be regarded as a divine attribute, whereas creation is a divine function. Truth is what God is, whereas creating the world is something God did (as time is linear in the Abrahamic religions). Conflating the nature of an entity and what it does overlooks the basic difference between the two, and thus can give rise to false comparisons based on an assumed common denominator.

In my first world religions course in college, I was fascinated that I could hold both of the disparate (i.e., essentially different in kind; not allowing of comparison) paradigms of Hinduism and the Abrahamic religions in my head without being able to find a basis on which I could compare the two paradigms; they were so unlike. Put another way, I was intrigued that two paradigms do not allow for comparison and yet seek to explain the same phenomenon (i.e., religious metaphysics). The sheer paradigmatic difference alone amazed me so much that I was convinced that further study in the field would give me ideas and paradigms fascinatingly different from what I already knew (e.g., from my religious upbringing).  In studying ancient Greco-Roman religion and Christianity, I discovered that even though continuities can be found, that the two religions are based on qualitatively different religious variables renders comparison difficult if not impossible outside of the few shared continuities.

Ancient Greco-Roman religion was not just “Greek mythology.” In fact, ritual played the central role as means of appeasing and petitioning one god or another. The ritual sacrificing of animals took place on alters outside of the temples, which were used to store gifts for the gods. Because the Roman emperors considered themselves, or were considered to be divine, they mandated that sacrifices be made. Some early Christians accepted even death rather than sacrifice to a god other than Yahweh.

Christianity carried on the ritual of sacrifice in the Eucharistic liturgy. The bread and wine become the body and blood of Christ when a priest holds them up in the air above an alter (later, table) and recalls the sacrifice that Jesus makes in the Gospels. The Greek and Roman priests consumed the best of the burnt offerings, and the Christian priests consume the body and blood of Christ. Until the Vatican II council of the Roman Catholic Church in the 1960s, the chalices were not extended to the laity. There was thus a continuity between the respective Roman priests.

Lest it be assumed that the two religions are easily comparable, it should be noted that even the importance of Jesus Christ’s vicarious sacrifice (see Anselm) does not mean that Christianity’s most important variable is ritualistic sacrifice. Even more important than the ritual consecration is the variable of love. The relative importance of love over ritualistic sacrifice is particularly evident in Protestantism. Even in Anglicanism and Lutheranism, taking Communion receives less emphasis than in Roman Catholicism. That ritual sacrifice is not the core of Christianity does not downgrade the religious efficacy of the Eucharist in the transforming process of sanctification. Rather, the ritualistic sacrifice is a means to an end that reflects another variable (love). The variables of love and ritual are not only distinct; they are different in kind.

To Augustine, “God is love” is foundational. Calvin agreed. The theologians could have been looking at the following biblical verse, “Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.”[1] Even to say God loves is awkward because God’s very nature is love. Hence no one says, love loves, for what else would love do? This is not to say that the action of loving is synonymous with love itself. By example and preachments, Jesus of the Gospels makes the foundation clear. This is not to say that Jesus’ vicarious sacrifice for the salvation of humans therefore lies at the core of the religion. Just following the biblical passage above ending with “God is love” is this sentence: “In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him.”[2] “In this,” namely that God is love, God became incarnate and willingly allowed that incarnation to be sacrificed for humans. The incarnation, including its sacrifice, presupposes that God is love, so ritually reenacting the sacrifice of the incarnation cannot be foundational over God’s nature as love. Put another way that should now seem familiar, God’s nature exists before, and is thus not contingent on, God sending his Son into the world. Whereas sacrifice can be classified under ritual (as one type), love cannot be so classified as it is not a type of ritual; indeed, love as the deity’s nature and ritual as a human activity are not directly comparable.

Therefore, just because phenomena exist in the same domain does not mean that the underlying core variables that are not shared are directly comparable. To be sure, two religions may be based on the same core-variable, in which case comparison is not nearly as much of a problem, but where the bases are disparate, comparisons can only go so far. For example, we can compare the ritual sacrifices in ancient Roman religion and Roman Catholicism, but once we go deeper, we run into a brick wall because ritual and love are not directly comparable as they are disparate.  Even if two variables can be connected, they may still be disparate. For example, truth and Creation are not directly comparable even though it can be said that it is true that the Abrahamic deity created all that is in Creation. The nature of truth in Hinduism does not recognize this connection. This alone means that truth itself must transcend its particular manifestations. Hence St. Denis (Pseudo-Dionysus) wrote that God transcends the Trinity, so a person clutching to the latter metaphysical idea does not sufficiently transcend beyond the limits of  human cognition in yearning for God. It follows that the nature of God transcends human conceptions of the incarnation, which includes Jesus’ sacrifice and the related ritualistic sacrifices. Only by getting to the core variable of a religion can it be understood as sui generis, or unique, even though other religions are within the same domain.

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[1] 1 John 4:8. English Standard Version.

[2] 1 John 4:9.

Transcending Limited Notions of the Divine

When religion meets human nature, does the gravitational pull of me, me, me tend to encompass the journey downward in an all too comfortable direction? In his Natural History of Religion, David Hume proposes his theory that any religion begins with a focus on something akin to divine simplicity, but then becomes increasingly robed with anthropomorphic artifacts until the sheer weight of which brings down the tree whose inherently upward-looking striving succumbs to the increasing weight of the human.

In other words, is religion too weak to withstand the human, all too human ornaments that we conveniently adorn of our religions? The ornaments ultimate reflect ourselves, and thus are so convenient. So too is surrounding ourselves with others of like beliefs a matter of convenience. That is, religion can unwittingly become all about the self. Such religions or sects thereof can get sucked into a regular orbit of convenience without any of the congregants noticing the gradual and subtle slide.

As an antidote, transcendence, the unique and core aspect of religion and spirituality, can be utilized to get us outside of ourselves, including our concepts. The concept of God inhabiting a tree or stone relatively easy to transcend as a person looks past the image, both physical and cognitive, toward what is beyond, or through the favored image. Similarly even religious concepts that are themselves invisible, such as justice and mercy, can be transcended as a person moves on to even more basic divine concepts—even that of the One. Because the human mind is finite, even concepts revealed by a divine source are limited as they enter our cognitive atmosphere. Augustine likened this to light coming through a dark window. Accordingly, he warned that the relationship between the Father and Son should not be anthropomorphized into a human father-son relationship. St. Denis of the sixth century claimed that even Son itself as a limited human concept affixed to a divine person (of the Trinity) should be transcended in moving closer to the mystery that shrouds the divine in Christianity.

Simply stated, God lies beyond the limits of human cognition, perception, and sensibility, and thus beyond our concepts—even those associated with divine revelation. Denis refers to the transcendence of God as the brilliant light that is in the darkness of unknowing. Hence faith is not knowledge. The latter is human, all too human, and thus must be transcended in order to transcend beyond our limited domain. Only when even the lofty religious concepts are transcended—not denied or pushed aside, but, rather, gone through them—can God be yearned for distinctly—meaning distinctly from religion being about the self, and thus a faith that is too convenient. The unknowability or ineffability of the divine is not hostile to religion, but is rather its salvation as distinguished from egoism and even selfishness.

The yearning itself, combined with transcending the religious concepts—especially those that are so very comfortable—is the best way religiously to leave the self behind. From a focus beyond the limits of human cognition, perception, and sensibility, the spiritualized person returns to herself and our domain newly sensitized. When such a person looks at others, the sensitivity manifests automatically as compassion. This is more reliable, I submit, than relying on human intentionality, as in a decision to treat someone with compassion because of a religious teaching. Given the gravity of the human self, even in the religious sphere, compassion that springs automatically from the sensitivity to our world, including other people, is more reliable. Hence, paradoxically letting go cognitively of our cherished religious concepts of divine attributes can lead to transcendent religious experience—the sui generis essence of religion and spirituality—and more faithful feeling and action regarding religious ethical teachings.

The Essence of Leadership

In The Essence of Leadership, leadership itself is reformulated in such a way that what emerges—the essence of leadership—is distinct from related phenomena, including management, presiding, and mentoring. This is not to say, however, that leadership bears no relation to strategy—hence the complex concept of strategic leadership, which is not without risks. Leadership itself contains risks, which a focus on the essence of leadership, rather than, for instance, taking leadership as simply about having influence, can arguably minimize. Such risks include the cult of the leader, to which charisma and attributions of heroism are especially susceptible, and the distorting impact of ideology, such as in Burns’ version of transformational leadership. Shaking out the risks and distinguishing leadership as a unique phenomenon are ways of pointing back to the essence of leadership, which applies in virtually any culture. That is, the essence is cross-cultural. Taking comparative religion as a stand-in for cultures, I demonstrate that the essence of leadership can be informed by Taoist, Buddhist, and Judeo-Christian principles.

Source: The Essence of Leadership

Son of God

The 2014 film, Son of God, follows a familiar trajectory well-known to viewers who had seen films such as George Stevens’ The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965). Watching the Passion story yet again, I could not help but take note of the repetitiveness from sheer likeness. Yet one scene sticks out among the usual denouement—that scene in which Jesus in the wilderness, the high priest in the Temple, and the Roman Pontius Pilate with his wife in their chambers pray in their own ways and with differing assumptions about divine intent toward a petitioner. The interplay of petitions plays like a tutorial for the ears and eyes on comparative religion, found here even within a religion.

The entire essay is at “Son of God.” 

Religious Sources of Business Ethics: How Far Along Are We?

If Business Ethics for Dummies is any indication, the topic of religious sources for business ethics must have gained steam through the first decade of the twenty-first century. Increasing interest in such a topic in the midst of modernity is ironic, or counter-intuitive. For philosophers without any degrees in religion, the temptation might be to dilettante over to this topic in order to proffer an opinion. The result for the rest of us could well be a false sense of the extent of knowledge on the topic.

In Business Ethics for Dummies, Norman Bowie—a philosopher assisted by a journalist who has written other for Dummies books—discusses topics in several religions to demonstrate how they can be relevant to business ethics. With regard to Christianity, Bowie starts out on most solid ground in pointing to how Goldman Sachs has violated the Golden Rule. Specifically, the bank sold mortgage-based bonds (e.g. Timberwolf) that the bankers admitted internally were “crap” and shorted in proprietary trading even as Goldman sales people were selling the securities to clients. It is unlikely that the people at Goldman would have relished being misled on something they were sold.

In terms of the Ten Commandments, Bowie wonders whether it is for Jews only. He concludes that not stealing, lying, or envying others’ possessions is consistent with business ethics. It is questionable how useful such a platitude might be to actual business practitioners.

On the topic of Biblical teachings on wealth, Bowie opines that “the ethical teachings in the [Bible] can and should be consistent with normal business practices” (p. 27). To get to this conclusion, he suggests that Abraham established the concept of private property by purchasing a burial site for his wife, Sarah. Bowie even suggests that the exchanged evinces the essence of all business transactions.

Regarding the rich man getting through the eye of the needle, Bowie discounts the typical conclusion that Jesus was pointing to a dichotomy between being wealthy and being saved by interpreting Jesus’ statement—“With God all things are possible”—as meaning that the rich can indeed enter the Kingdom of God. Bowie will only admit that the Bible “discourages greed and the excessive accumulation of wealth and encourages generosity” (p. 28). The philosopher sidesteps the tension or outright contradiction between the rich man getting through the eye of the needle (a view that was salient in early Christianity) and the virtues of liberality and magnificence (which were salient in the Renaissance). Such tension, which is discussed in my book, God's Gold, assumes that the two virtues require continued wealth (to be given away in on-going philanthropy) rather than simply involving a once-and-for-all getting rid of all of one’s possessions before following Christ. That the “eye of the needle” story and the Christian virtues requiring wealth have each been dominant at different points in the history of Christian thought is missed by Bowie’s blanket statement on a definitive Biblical position on greed, excessive wealth, and generosity.

With regard to polytheistic religions, including Buddhism and Hinduism, Bowie claims that because they “believe in more than one god,” they “place more emphasis on individual actions and thoughts in the quest for enlightenment or elevation to the next plane of existence” (p. 32). Would not having more gods to call on reduce the reliance on the human’s actions and thoughts? I can find no credible basis for Bowie’s assertion.

In terms of Buddhism in particular, Bowie brackets Theravada Buddhism wherein only poor monks can be enlightened and concludes that for the lay Buddhists having wealth sans attachment is consistent with enlightenment. However, by including hoarding in attachment, Bowie implicates wealth itself.

Turning to Hinduism, Bowie contends that the religion is relevant in being reduced to its non-dualist (i.e., monist) Advaita Vedanta school’s “all in one, one in all” principle.  “Hinduism teaches that all beings and things are both themselves and all other beings and things. Thus, the rationale for treating others well is really one of self-interest; if you hurt someone else, you hurt yourself. Because everything is made of the same essence, you are everything in the world and everything in the world is you” (p. 33). Bowie concludes that business and profit-making are not considered bad according to Hindu teachings.

Bowie succumbs to a fallacy, however, in assuming that something else is me just because it has the same substance. A cat and I am both made out of Brahman, but this is not to say that I am the cat or that I’m hurt when the cat is hurt. In other words, everything in the world is made of the same stuff, but that does not mean that the specific entity that is me extends to the world. There is a difference between saying that everything is made of the same thing and that everything is me. Compassion in Hinduism stems from the former rather than the latter. Furthermore, Bowie over-extends the business term of self-interest in applying it to his misconception of the Hindu monist teaching that Atman (soul) is Brahman.

Generally speaking, uncovering possible religious sources of business ethics cannot be made easier by re-casting those sources in business terms, nor should the task be compromised by glossing over religious teachings from the exterior vantage-point of philosophy.

To be sure, dilettantism is not unusual in the field of business ethics. Management scholars tend to become philosophers (sometimes even without a single course in ethical theory) and both management and philosophy scholars may become political scientists as the field of business & government (e.g. regulation) is typically lumped in with business ethics. Furthermore, sociology is often “picked up” on the cuff as social norms are salient in the field of business & society (e.g., CSR), which is also lumped in with business ethics. It is as if getting a doctorate in management, philosophy, political science, or sociology (and now religious studies) gives the holder a pass in any of these other disciplines under the cover of “multidisciplinary.” The proof is in the pudding, however, as evinced in the shoddy writing of “scholars” who venture too far from their native fauna. Perhaps even more than intelligence, self-restraint is necessary for solid scholarship.

Source:

Norman Bowie and Meg Schneider, Business Ethics for Dummies (New York: Wiley, 2011).

See Skip Worden, God's Gold, Christianized Ethical Leadership, and Spiritual Leadership in Business, both available at Amazon.